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Conversations from ISTE Live with IntegratED EDU (Megan Diede and Kara Rigsby) · Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey, welcome to the Integrate This EdTech podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm David Berner. I'm joined with Megan Deedy
• 0:06
  and Kara Rigsby. Happy to have them with us.
• 0:09
  They're gonna talk a little bit about your company,
• 0:11
  but you've also been at ISTE. This is your first
• 0:14
  time at ISTE, and you presented as well. Yeah.
• 0:17
  So let's get into the first thing here with ISTE
• 0:20
  being the first time here. What's your experience
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  been like? this first time. Yeah. Someone mentioned
• 0:25
  this conference is like the Super Bowl of Education
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  and I probably could agree with that because
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  you first walked in and the energy of the entire
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  place is just uplifted. Tons of amazing ideas
• 0:37
  and sessions and educators just so far so good.
• 0:41
  Yeah, I would second that. Just with it being
• 0:44
  so large, you worry, like, you know, the overwhelmingness
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  of it all. But it's been really great. People
• 0:50
  have been extremely kind, so helpful. And yeah,
• 0:53
  it's been a great experience so far. Awesome.
• 0:56
  Can I talk to you a little bit about what's your
• 0:59
  perception of, like, getting across the convention
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  center? Because this comes up a lot with guests
• 1:04
  that we have. Like, even ones that have been
• 1:06
  here, they're like... You know, make sure you
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  plan accordingly because you're going to have
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  a session that's happening next and it's going
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  to be across the convention center. You're not
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  going to make it, right? Well, we didn't plan
• 1:16
  ahead as well coming here. So the night before
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  we flew in super late and I was like, I'll just
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  quick look at the session guide. There's no quick
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  look at that session. It's like what sessions
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  to attend. So we kind of just took the first
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  day of going around and. We discovered a whole
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  new section today of the conference. So that
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  was exciting. What was it? The main stage The
• 1:40
  poster area so It's been a wonderful experience.
• 1:44
  Yeah, we it's just it's so big like we had no
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  idea that there's like a whole nother like corridor
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  of Stuff happening. Yeah, so it was kind of fun
• 1:52
  this morning like oh, this is where some of this
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  is so yeah, it's It's huge, but that also kind
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  of is kind of cool because then there's going
• 2:00
  to be something for everybody to be able to pick
• 2:02
  and choose kind of what's going to fit best for
• 2:05
  them. So, yeah, definitely leave some walking
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  time in between, but it's been a lot of fun.
• 2:10
  Yeah. Yeah. And it's pretty wild, too. I mean,
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  there's so many different sections. Have you
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  figured out what your favorite section is yet?
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  Like posters, playground. Yeah, we've experienced
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  a little bit of like the sessions and then like
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  the quick talks where they call them turbo talks.
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  Those are cool to just kind of walk by and get
• 2:27
  a glimpse and stay if you need to or keep walking
• 2:30
  if you don't. So we've been great. Yeah, I would
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  say the sessions have been great and then even
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  the presentations in the exhibit booths as well
• 2:40
  have been really cool because then you could
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  just get real time information on that product
• 2:44
  or that idea or whatever. So that's been really
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  fun, too. Cool. So let's talk a little bit about
• 2:50
  you. You did your session yesterday. Yeah. Can
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  you talk about so what's the name of the session
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  and then what were you what's like the main goal
• 2:56
  of that session? Oh, sure. Our session was called
• 2:59
  the engagement blueprint. The main goal of that
• 3:03
  is to help leaders and educators take what they're
• 3:06
  already using for their curriculum and their
• 3:08
  instruction and do small shifts to meet the needs
• 3:11
  of students. Multiple access points, creating
• 3:14
  experiences. And I think that it went really
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  well. We had great feedback on it. Lots of participation.
• 3:21
  Amazing educators joined us. Yeah, yeah, it went
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  really well. And like she said, it's really just
• 3:27
  focusing on that instructional design and student
• 3:31
  engagement and how we can help leaders and educators
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  better, better their design. OK. And it's part
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  of the idea that is like like quick win type
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  things where it's like you can increase engagement
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  in these ways like. by doing certain strategies
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  or things? Is that kind of the focus or? Yeah,
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  I mean, we kind of say that engagement isn't
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  a strategy. It's the outcome, right? And so we
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  kind of give ways that ideas that you could take
• 3:54
  your instruction and put in different pathways,
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  you know, like movement or auditory or visual
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  arts and how you can make those small adjustments
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  to what you already need to teach and get that
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  engagement up, which then, of course, leads to
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  student growth and behaviors go down. all of
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  that. Awesome. OK, so outside the sessions, your
• 4:16
  company that you've got, Integrated LLC, right?
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  So what do you do with that company? Do you have
• 4:23
  a website? What type of things do you plug? Yeah.
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  Gosh, Integrated EDU was born because we, as
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  educators ourselves, we spent over 15 years in
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  the classroom already. And when our teaching
• 4:37
  started to become a little bit more challenging.
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  We needed a better way to instruct students.
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  So we came up with that idea and then it just
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  blossomed. Educators were loving it. It was really
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  sticking. Leaders were taking us in. So we created
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  Integrated. It is just us. The company is is
• 4:54
  Kara and I and we just we're consultants. We
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  go in and help schools and districts. implement
• 5:01
  different curriculum and how to use it more effectively
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  with those designs. We go in a lot of times and
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  we do back to school, you know, how to be engaging
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  for your students. So it's just kind of blossomed
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  into that. Yeah, we will go in and speak. We'll
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  do back to school. We do one day trainings, two
• 5:19
  day trainings. We also do long term consulting
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  just around that idea of effective design to
• 5:24
  engage students, but also to help students grow.
• 5:27
  So that way your data also reflects that. OK,
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  awesome. And you mentioned earlier is that you're
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  like on a bit of a tour. So can you talk about
• 5:34
  a little bit like where are you going? Yeah.
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  So we're kind of in the middle of our summer
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  tour right now for integrated. We were in we
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  were in Dallas for an amazing conference called
• 5:44
  Elevate is for pre -K to teachers, high energy,
• 5:49
  just wonderful educators there. Then we got to
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  come here. So we're here at the ASCD and ITC
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  conference. And then we head on over to Innovate
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  School Summits. They're a wonderful conference.
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  We do Vegas and Nashville. And then back in our
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  home state, Wyoming, we have the Wyoming Department
• 6:04
  of Ed. Called TeacherCon. Yeah. OK, great. So
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  and then what type of things? Do you have a website
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  where people can go and check that out to connect
• 6:16
  with you? Yeah. Where can they do that at? Sure.
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  So they can go to integratedk12 .com to kind
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  of see what we're about and what we have to offer.
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  We also have free resources like a podcast that
• 6:28
  we put out once a month with classroom happenings
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  and application. Where else are we? In the name
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  of the podcast is the same name. It's called
• 6:36
  Integrated EDU. We post everything on YouTube.
• 6:39
  It's also housed on our website as well. So two
• 6:41
  different access points there. We are on socials
• 6:45
  all over. We are on Insta, Facebook, Twitter,
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  YouTube, LinkedIn. Anywhere that you have social,
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  we are there. You can't find us. You weren't
• 6:57
  looking hard enough. And you will find us under
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  Integrated K12 or Integrated EDU. Okay, and then
• 7:03
  are you still doing some you're doing some collaborations
• 7:05
  you had mentioned to like with you written with
• 7:08
  Matt shout out to Matt Miller friend of the show
• 7:11
  So are you doing so writing for that or how what
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  are you doing with that? Yeah, we We We had collaborated
• 7:21
  with Matt and we had posted on his blog. He was
• 7:23
  so generous with that, which is amazing. But
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  we kind of paused with any collaboration with
• 7:28
  writing because we actually wrote our own book
• 7:30
  and it's recently published called Elevated Educator.
• 7:34
  Okay. But we do like to collaborate with just
• 7:37
  other educators and other speakers on lots of
• 7:40
  different things and we're always open to that.
• 7:41
  All right. Well, Megan, Karen, thank you for
• 7:43
  joining us. We appreciate it. Make sure you follow
• 7:45
  them on all the socials. Check out the book.
• 7:48
  Check out the website. Integrated LLC. Yes. Thanks.